Youth marketing

Youth marketing is a term used in the marketing and advertising industry to describe activities to communicate with young people, typically in the age range of 13 to 35. More specifically, there is the teen marketing, targeting people age 13 to 17, college marketing, targeting college-age consumers, typically ages 18 to 24, young adult marketing, targeting youngsters use professionals, typically ages 25 to 34.

The youth market is critical because of the demographic's buying power and its members' influence on the spending of family members. In addition, teens and young adults often set trends that are adopted by other demographic groups.

While frowned upon for teens and young adults, another common way advertisers target the older youth market is through product placement, which occurs when a brand name product appears in a medium not necessarily related to the product itself. Companies often pay for their products to be placed in a movie or on a television show. This act, while not an overt form of advertising, seeks to target teens and children in a subtle manner.

Youth marketing strategies commonly include television advertising, magazine advertising and online marketing. Today young people expect to be able to learn about, interact and be entertained with brands or services targeting them online. Other common youth marketing tactics include entertainment marketing, music marketing, sports marketing, event marketing, viral marketing, school and college programs, product sampling and influencer marketing.

Examples of brands embraced by youth and used as examples in marketing cases are Vans Footwear, which used youth marketing tactics to grow from a niche skateboard shoe brand to a successful international business, and Mountain Dew, a well known soft drink brand that expanded market share through youth marketing tactics in the 1990s.

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